We clean homes all over Medford

Medford's older houses hold more dust

Many of Medford's houses are a century old or close to it. Two-families with one unit upstairs and one down fill the side streets of South Medford and the Hillside. West Medford and Lawrence Estates have bigger colonials and Victorians with tall windows and wide door frames. They are good houses to live in, and they give dust far more places to settle than a newer build does.

Dust in an old house does not stay on the floor. It sits on top of door frames and between the slats of mini blinds, and it cakes onto ceiling fans that ran all summer. Radiators and old forced air ducts stir it back into the room every heating season. Leave those spots alone for a few months and the whole house starts to smell stale, even with clean floors.

A standard clean in a Medford house has to reach the high spots as well as the floors. We dust the door frames and the ceiling fans, and we clean the mini blinds and wall hangings. The carpets and floors get vacuumed last, so anything we knock down from above gets picked up. If the laundry is in the basement, say so, because we can clean the laundry room on the same visit.

• Door frames dusted in every room
• Ceiling fans and mini blinds cleaned
• Wall hangings and door windows wiped
• Carpets and floors vacuumed last
• Oven and microwave cleaned inside

Winter salt gets tracked into Medford homes

Medford winters are long and messy. Plows and salt trucks work the Fellsway and the side streets all season, and everything they spread ends up on boots. Salt dries into a white haze on hardwood and tile. Sand is worse, because it grinds into a finish every time someone walks over it. In a two-family, a shared front hall means the neighbors' boots add to it.

Spring brings a different mess. The Middlesex Fells covers much of the northern part of the city, and the street trees leaf out fast once the weather turns. Pollen comes through the screens as soon as the windows open and settles as a yellow film on sills and floors. Summer along the Mystic runs humid, and a bathroom without a good fan stays damp long after a shower.

Because of that, the work in a Medford house changes with the season. In winter we spend more time on the floors by the entry doors and in the laundry room, where wet boots and coats end up. In spring the door windows and the patio door get more attention, since that is where pollen collects. If you want the windows washed inside and out, ask for it by name, because window cleaning is listed as its own service.

Leases near Tufts end in late summer

The Hillside around Tufts is full of rentals, and a lot of Greater Boston leases end at the close of August. That packs many of the move-outs near campus into the same couple of weeks. Landlords need each unit ready for the next tenant. Tenants who want their deposit back need the place left clean before they hand over the keys. If you already know your date, call early.

Move-out work is a different job from a regular visit. The rooms are empty, so every scuff and dust line on the floor shows. The next person to move in will open the oven and the microwave first. We clean the inside of both, and trash out is on our list for whatever got left behind. Door frames and mini blinds get done too, since nothing in an empty room hides them.

Remodeling an old Medford house makes its own mess. When old plaster and lath come out, the dust is fine enough to drift into rooms nobody worked in. Post construction clean up is one of our listed services for exactly that. Patricia Weibel wrote this in a Google review: "Called for a one-time clean after renovations and they handled all the dust and leftover mess without complaining. Communication was easy and the price was fair."

Getting a price in Medford

Call (617) 803-6705, or ask for an online estimate on this page. Tell us the size of the house and whether you want a regular clean or a deep clean. If you have a move-out date or a recent remodel, say so. You get the price in a free quote, so you know what the job costs before we start. We are open seven days a week.